NACDL - National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
Press on Honest Services Fraud & Public Corruption
The Supreme Court’s decision in Skilling v. United States fundamentally altered the landscape of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 honest services fraud prosecutions. Cases and clients at every stage of the criminal adjudication process are affected by the Skilling decision and the uncertain state of law. Meanwhile, the Department of Justice and other organizations are lobbying for a Skilling-fix. NACDL opposes such a fix and any attempts to restore a limitless honest service fraud statute. This page includes programs and press leading up to the Skilling decision.
March 13, 2020
This page includes press and commentary on honest services fraud and public corruption before, leading up to, and following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Skilling v. United States.
NACDL sponsored programs held leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court's oral argument and decision in Skilling v. United States, including press calls, served as valuable resources for the significant media attention to this important matter, coverage of which yielded hundreds of news stories in the news cycles during and following the arguments. For example, Bloomberg Business Week covered the Skilling case in a March 1, 2010, article, Skilling Seeks New Trial Without ‘Tar and Feathers,’ which cited to comments by NACDL Board Member Timothy P. O’Toole. O’Toole was also a panelist at the December 7, 2009, NACDL/Heritage co-sponsored event on Capitol Hill, and appeared on December 8, 2009, on American Public Media’s public radio program, “Marketplace” on the subject of the Honest Services Fraud cases argued before the Supreme Court that day (“SC could scale back anti-corruption law”). Barry Pollack, Co-Chair At Large of NACDL’s White Collar Crime Section, got the last word in Enron’s hometown coverage in the Houston Chronicle, Did Skilling Get a Fair Shake Here?
In a McClatchy story, appearing in papers from Seattle to Miami, NACDL’s White Collar Crime Policy Director Shana-Tara Regon pointedly explained that “The statute is 28 words, and no one knows what it means.” (“Piece of ex-Alaska Rep. Weyhrauch's case goes to Supreme Court”) And NACDL member Bill Mateja penned an Op-ed in the Dallas Morning News, “Supreme Court should void 'honest services'” in which he also discusses NACDL’s important coalition work: “To this end, Congress heard testimony last summer from strange bedfellows who have formed a coalition to bring ‘overcriminalization’ to lawmakers' attention, namely, the American Bar Association, American Civil Liberties Union, Cato Institute, Constitution Project, Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and Washington Legal Foundation.”